


Aim for the Head

by forgetful01



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:55:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetful01/pseuds/forgetful01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave ==> Panic.</p>
<p>The evacuation announcement has been sent out and you now find yourself on the streets with a sword in one hand and a gun in the other. Screams are bombarding all around you along with the whooshing sounds of gunshots and dropping bombs.</p>
<p>What do you do now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dave Strider

Panic.

Panic flows through you like an electric shock, and it paralyzes you in the same respect. You can remember a week before the outbreak, you were sitting in front of your computer. Head in your hands and pouring over a new rap that had yet to be perfected. The clown was relentlessly pestering you over pesterchum, apparently too stoned to notice you weren’t typing back your usual volumes of sass and references he couldn’t readily identify at the best of times. But suddenly the messages stopped and you glanced up over the rim of your shades that had begun to slip down the bridge of your nose to notice he had stopped midsentence. You didn’t think much of it at the time, maybe he wandered off to get something to eat.

He came back hours later when you were finalizing the lyrics and syncing them up to the sick beat you set up, oddly distant. It wasn’t often he was like that. After a bit of poking and prodding he admitted he was worried about his old man, and that he was burning up with a fever. From what you knew about Gamzee’s father, who used to be heavily involved in some kind of cult shtick, he was a big dude with an even bigger temper. And as far as you could tell through Gamzee’s mess of a typing quirk, he never got sick. You leaned back in the chair at your desk, typing out a quick response to get his older brother and take him to the hospital. While you had never met Gamzee, his brother, or his father, you knew he was more than an hours car ride away, near the beach while you lived in the city of sweltering hot Texas. You had both agreed to meet sometime over the upcoming summer, since you had been dating for about half a year now.

After a few minutes Gamzee explained that he and his older brother Kurloz were going to take their dad to the hospital. You reminded him to buckle up, which was more serious than a joke. You knew he had a bad habit of not doing simple tasks without being reminded of them. But he laughed like it was a joke and said you sounded like Karkat before signing off. Karkat was another kid you had never actually met face to face. Apparently he lived a few states away and it damn near broke the clowns heart to move away from his best friend. From what you could gather, Karkat was a short little loudmouth who honestly did mean well for his friends, even if he never exactly showed it the proper way.

The next day rolled around and Gamzee didn’t get online until later on during the day. You greeted him with a ‘sup chucklefuck’, which he flat out ignored. Weird. You frowned to yourself. While you and him were dating, no doubt about that, he more often than not didn’t mind the playful teasing. Almost as if he were sitting right next to you, a feeling of dread filled the air as he explained that his Dad wasn’t in the hospital anymore. You asked what the hell that even meant, where could he go, and Gamzee said he didn’t know. That his dad was very sick and had to be taken to another facility for more intense treatment.

You spent the rest of the night comforting him.

 

Two days before the outbreak you and Bro were holed up in your apartment. Every channel on the television was broadcasting emergency evacuation bulletins. While the evacuations weren’t mandatory yet, plenty of people were leaving. From high above the streets you could see from the window the long slew of cars slowly making their way out of the city. Others were flocking to churches or other places of worship. Bro was eerily silent throughout all of this. No one was sure how the epidemic was spreading, but it always seemed to start out the same, with a burning fever. You pushed Gamzee and his dad from your thoughts as you sat beside Bro, watching the broadcasts behind the safety of your shades.

The day before the world went to shit, you were packing up what you could. Gamzee hadn’t been online for close to four days and your mind was buzzing with concern and questions. You didn’t vocalize any of them. Gamzee could take care of himself, and his older brother would see that they were safe. The people who had been hospitalized were now quarantined in an effort to stop the spread. You could hear the radio from the living room as you shoved canned goods into a duffel bag that the ‘Infected’, that’s what they were called now, were showing signs of extreme hostility. On the t.v. were graphic pictures of mauled bodies and people in a panic. You yourself felt queasy at the sights, but Bro refused to turn the screen off. You both packed and loaded up his truck and once it got late enough, you both made an agreement to set off together in the morning, at dawn. That night was one of the longest in your life.

You awoke the next morning to a loud banging on the front door. You sprang out of bed, grabbing your shades with one hand and your sword with the other. Bro was already in the living room when you ran in, his own sword in his hand. From outside you could hear gunshots and screams, and you wonder why you didn’t hear them before. Bro says nothing to your questions of what the hell was going on, and instead grabbed your arm and half dragged you off to the kitchen.

“Dave listen to me. The worlds gone to shit, and we are in serious fucking trouble here. I need you to buck the hell up and stay calm.”

You had never heard him be so tense with you. You nodded.

He forced open the window and shoved you toward it. “Go, down the fire escape. Keep your sword with you. Take this too.” Something black and heavy and cold was shoved into your hands. It was a pistol. You raised your eyes to his shades, eyes widening. You had never held a gun before, you didn’t even know he had one. You opened your mouth to argue, that he should hold onto it, but he was shoving you toward the window again. The banging on the door was getting louder, coupled with the sound of cracking wood. You got the words out “But dude, the food” before you half crawled and was half pushed through the open window.

You landed on your feet on the fire escape, spared a glance up to the open window and began to dash down the metal stairs. It clanged and groaned beneath your feet and once you hit concrete you looked up to the window again. Fear erupted inside of you as you saw no sign of Bro following behind. You shoved the gun into the back of your pants and held the sword tightly in your sweating hand. There were more gunshots around you and somehow through the chaos you could distinctly make out the sound of planes.

Your eyes rose skyward and you saw the planes for a single moment. Long, sleek, and black. The next moment you were nearly thrown off your feet as the ground lurched beneath them, sending you sprawling a few feet. A fire had engulfed the building across the street. No, you thought as clarity hit you like a club to the back of the head, a bomb. The high pitched whistling streamed through the air and somehow the screams got louder. Suddenly something grabbed your left arm and pulled hard. A scream caught in your throat as you came face to face with…whatever this thing was. The glazed look in its eyes, the iris yellow tinted, skin a sickly pale-ish grey, whatever it was it was not human. You vaguely remember thinking that you had met the man howling in your face somewhere before, and you wrenched yourself out of his grasp and jumped back, sword poised. He rushed at you and you swung, watching as the sharpened blade of your sword swung effortlessly through his neck, sending his head rolling. The body made it one or two steps closer before slumping onto the ground.

You still didn’t scream, as a cold sweat broke out over you and your stomach heaved as you realized then who the man was. One of your teachers. Gasping for air, you doubled back to the fire escape. More whistling and gunshots. You ran up the stairs, yelling out Bro’s name, no answer. You made it to the window and began to climb up. A blood soaked arm shot out at your face, clawing in your direction and missed by mere inches. You landed on your back onto the fire escape, scrambled to your feet, and ran.

You ran as fast as you could.


	2. Gamzee Makara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so updates will (hopefully) be weekly, which means every weekend theres a new chapter! i bet y'all are pumped. i mean, hell, im pumped. im so pumped for this shit.
> 
> also with each chapter a different person will be from their point of view. first chapter was daves, this one is from gamzees. WHO WILL GET THEIR SPOT IN THE LIGHT NEXT WEEK? who knows. not you. but i know. i know all.

You sighed as you ran a hand over your face. The emptiness of the warehouse resonated around you, off the walls, along the floor. Mercifully, there was silence. Flashes of images swept through your mind and you nearly got sick again. Kurloz was rubbing your back methodically, and despite everything you found some comfort in that. At least after everything was said and done, you had your brother. You both had each other. And you were both in the same boat. You had no way of contacting Dave to make sure he was alright, he had no way of contacting Meulin. You sighed as you buried your face in your hands, trying to steady your breathing the best you could. The silence was damn near deafening.

Not that you blamed Kurloz for his silence. His was no longer a choice. When you were very young, he had fallen ill. You can’t really remember it much. Years of weed consumption had dulled the sharpness of memories, making everything feel hazed and faded. Even the world from a week ago seemed like a very distant memory. You raised your face from your hands to see his were moving, his only way of communicating. Despite the fact that Kurloz had taught you to be nearly as fluent in sign language as he was, you couldn’t focus on the movements to make sense of the words he was attempting to convey. He sighed through his nose, raised his hand to run it through the mess of hair atop your head, smiled patiently. The look plainly said, what am I going to do with you. You smiled back and butted your head against his hand and he gave a silent chortle, his shoulders raising and dropping with it.

You both got to your feet, a crowbar in his hand, a bat in yours. He motioned toward the wall, a hole large enough to squeeze through. You went first, immediately checking behind you to see Kurloz if had followed. He did. You looked about the street and saw it was deserted. The both of you were on the outskirts of a rundown town, but not very far from where you had started. The boardwalk where you and Kurloz had lived most of your life was overrun with the Infected, and you two had barely made it out. Tourist spots, airports, malls, hospitals, all overrun. Especially cities. You had heard from people who had fled that the cities were very dangerous, at least, those that hadn’t been bombed to smithereens. Before your mind could process what it was being said, Kurloz thanked the people with a nod of his head and tugged you along.

But even out of the city, finding shelter or a safe place to rest was dangerous. Despite how exhausted you were, you always let Kurloz sleep first while you kept watch. When he would start to protest, hands flying up in defiance, you waved him off. “Nah my brother, aint like to be tired yet." You could tell he didn’t believe you. With your facepaint gone, the dark circles rimming your eyes were steadily becoming more visible. Due to your face never getting a lick of sunlight under all the paint you would apply religiously every day, your features were pale and defined. Sometimes Kurloz would joke that you simply couldn’t tan, and you would whap the back of his head for that. Despite how much you two would bicker and argue in the past, you both knew that one thing was most important: staying together. The rest was up for debate.

 

The night you and he had left your home was the worst so far. He ran ahead of you, tugging you along as your unsteady legs shook and wobbled with every stride. And even though there were no bombs around you, every other moment you would spot the flash of a gun, hear the staccato of gunfire. After running for what felt like hours, he shoved you into a ditch on the edge of a large field. You could feel your heart pounding away in your chest and yet your face felt drooped, eyes unfocused. This had to have been a bad nightmare, a cruel motherfuckin’ dream. You must have said that aloud because Kurloz shook his head, eyes surveying the landscape. The gesture spoke for itself. This was now reality.

Covered in dirt and speckles of blood, you clutched at the bat you had thought to bring along close to your chest. You looked to Kurloz, hating the shake in your voice as you spoke.

“Brother, what fuck-all are we to do now?”

He didn’t answer. In the darkness it was hard to make out his figure, let alone any hand gestures. Just as you were about to ask again, he cut you off with a wave of his hand and tugged you back down onto the dirt. A large army truck drove by and for a moment you saw his face in the headlights. Pale, much paler than usual, with a tightlipped grimace and darkened eyes. The caravan moved on, the speaker blaring to evacuate to the nearest emergency housing faded in the distance. Kurloz sat back on his haunches, clasped his hands together. You knew immediately what he was doing: praying. Without a word, you joined him, praying to the gods you weren’t sure even existed anymore.

Afterwards you felt a little calmer in spite of yourself. It was around midnight when you and Kurloz had fled; it had to be close to three in the morning by now. Not that you were any good at judging the passage of time. Neither of you had thought to bring a cellphone along, but there was no way you’d even suggest going back for anything. Kurloz surveyed any exposed skin for any type of injuries, and you could feel your eyes drooping as you leaned against the side of the ditch. It was uncomfortable to lay against the rocks poking into your back, but the dirt was soft and mixed with sand.

“Maybe we should get our nap on, Kur. Need rest and shit for whatever comes at us next.”

Kurloz shook his head, black curls bobbing with the motion.

“Bro we’re safe enough here, ain’t nobody around for shit tons of distance.”

He shook his head again, more firmly this time, and helped you to your feet as you groaned tiredly. He looped one of your arms around his shoulder as he helped you out of the ditch and together you began the long trek down the dirt road.


	3. Kurloz Makara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its currently 2:37 am and im going to have a busy weekend so im uploading this in the dead of night before i regret it

Your little brother is practically half asleep as you lead him down the dirt road. His feet dragged along the ground and his head bobbed every so often, giving a quiet groan as you forced him to keep up. As much as you knew that traveling at night was dangerous, sleeping in an open area like that was even more so. So much had happened so fast. And despite your mere twenty years of age, you felt much older. For most of your life you had to take care of Gamzee, but now your life depended on taking care of him. You both had already lost your Dad; you could not lose each other. 

Even though Gamzee never said so aloud, you knew that he still must think Dad made it. And as much as you wanted to believe in him, you couldn’t. You had seen all too well what become of those who succumbed to the disease spreading like wildfire. While your Dad was strong and tough, with a glare that could freeze even the Devil in his place like a guilty child about to steal a cookie before dinner, you knew what most likely had become of him. You wouldn’t even allow yourself to think of Meulin. She was safe. You forced yourself to repeat that in your mind. Someone has to be looking out for her. It made your chest ache that the someone wasn’t you. And despite your best efforts not to think of her, thoughts and memories kept returning.

You had met her at school. Just entering ninth grade. You couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you could recall how you two hit it off almost right away and then became joined at the hip. Besides your translator and her, no one else in the school knew sign language. Mituna, an eccentric boy in the same grade as you, had tried to learn but he often got too frustrated with himself when he couldn’t get it right and stuttered out curse words. You compromised with passing notes or communicating through text chat. Kankri, who always had his nose stuck in some thick history book and spouted off long winded lectures, he might have learned how to sign but he seemed to avoid you the best he could. Not that you minded, it was no skin off your bones. He was a new student when you first met him, and you heard from Meulin that he had moved to live with his step mom, leaving his Dad and little brother behind.

But even after you had left high school and entered college across the state, you and Meulin had stayed in touch. You had merely come home for the break, and was planning on returning to your campus once it was over. Meulin had told you that she was planning on visiting her little sister as well. You hoped they were both safe. You raised your eyes to the sky, glancing over the stars shining through and the moon that was your only light. You gave a sidelong glance to Gamzee, knowing he must be as worried about Dave as you are for Meulin. He groaned a little louder and you stopped, looking to him with concern. He coughed a few times before shoving you away and landed on his knees, emptying his stomach onto the dirt. Your hands immediately found his back and rubbed soothing circles over his shoulder blades as he retched. Slowly, the sounds died down to a quiet uneven breathing. You pushed his bangs out of his face and he looked at you with glazed eyes as you pressed the back of your hand to his forehead. No fever. A sigh of relief pushed out of your lungs and you looked about. Up the road maybe twenty yards was an old weathered house. Despite the darkness you signed for him to get up, it was only a little ways further. Shakily, he did.

 

The door was locked, and the windows were boarded up. No light came from inside. In the moonlight, Gamzee’s face looked a sickly pale and you swallowed down the panic that wanted to rise through your body. You led him off the rickety porch and around back, spotting a shed. The roof was caved in, but the door was unlocked. You raised your crowbar as you opened the door, but it was empty aside from a few slanting shelves. Carefully, you walked Gamzee inside and he nearly flopped onto the floor in exhaustion. As quietly as you could, you barricaded the door and lay down, turning the crowbar over in your hands. Within a few minutes, Gamzee was curled in on himself, snoring quietly. And despite the fear still wracking your nerves, making your body feel tense, you rested your head on your arm and shut your eyes.

It was only then did you hear something drag its nails over the outside of door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aha cliffhanger enjoy a week before the next update my lovelies


	4. Dave Strider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> been without internet, dunno when im getting it back  
> take this short little update as my sincere apologies

Your shirt was soaked with blood as you pressed the tattered sleeve over his arm. He made no move to stop you. The sound of the horde outside the door was steadily growing louder, nails scraping over wood and teeth gnashing in anger. Your breathing was quick and frantic. There had to be a way out. As John attempted to keep his breath steady, you were rambling on.

“Dude you’re going to be fine. It’s just- it’s not that bad. We’re going to get out of here and you’ll be okay. John, stay with me. C’mon man, keep your eyes open.”

He laughed weakly, looking to the sleeve you had ripped from your shirt, the blood steadily staining it. “Guess I won’t be making the finals, huh Coach.”

It was a halfhearted attempt at a joke. You gave a soft sound, caught between a sob and a laugh. For the past two weeks you and John had teamed up. He had been on vacation to visit his cousin, Jade, while his Dad was back in Washington. He and Jade had gotten separated in the commotion, though he insisted she was fine. She was highly trained with her rifle and apparently had made it to the Nationals for firing tournaments. John had gotten stuck in the city during the bombings. John admitted to you that he wanted to find a way back to Washington to find his Dad, but agreed to stay with you until you and Bro were reunited.

So you stayed in the city.

It was dangerous, and nerve wracking. Around every corner was another Infected, almost every building that hadn’t crumbled to rubble was overrun. Even though a few times John had tried to convince you to leave the small fort you came up with in a pharmacy shop to find a safer place, you refused. You wouldn’t leave without Bro.

It turned out that you had signed his death warrant.

His breathing was growing more labored and you could only watch as those deep blue eyes slowly morphed. Yellow was beginning to tint around the irises and his groans of pain shifted to a familiar growl. You tried to speak his name, a summons back to his old self that he didn’t respond to. You weakly pushed his bangs back. The fever had taken over. He made another gurgling sound, choking on his own blood as he shakily sat up. You retracted your hand, upholstered the pistol that had been unused until now.

You gave a muffled sound, close to a sob, and raised it to his forehead. A spray of red. A thud as his body fell back. The agitated growls of the Undead on the other side of the barricade. You dropped the gun and wrapped your arms around yourself, trying not to empty what little food was in your stomach as the tears overtook you.

Can I pose a question?

How do you kill what is dead?

I just shoot from the hip

And I aim for the head

He used to be your friend

That was another life

With a single bullet

We're gonna blow his mind


	5. Gamzee Makara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> holy shit i havent updated in forever  
> why am i updating now  
> who the fuck knows  
> enjoy

You watched as Kurloz lowered the pail onto the ground at your feet, casting you a glance that you knew the motive behind. While Kurloz had always been naturally thinner than you, practically skeletal in appearance, you were more lanky and toned. But the pounds kept dropping and dropping and you honestly saw no point in trying to appease your never ending hunger.

Hunger. That was one of the only constants in your life now. Hunger, fear, and anger.

There had been no way to obtain the medicine you'd been on for what was most of your life. Mood stabilizers. They helped with your bouts of anger and vindictiveness, eased the tension that wrought through your body until you felt that your nerves were as tight as coiled wires. But there was no way to get them. Kurloz had relentlessly scoured the pharmacies that you both came across, stayed for hours and hours looking over empty shelves and a pitiful collection of bottles. But it had all been in vain. Any stores that weren't in the cities were ransacked, and there was no way either of you were willing to go back into the infested zones.

So you went without. And one of the side effects, it seemed, was a lack of interest in food.

The hunger was bad at first. It was piercing and lingering; a sharp pain in the pit of your stomach that was insatiable no matter what. You demanded more servings than could be spared, stole food in the middle of the night that Kurloz never confronted you about. Yet the hunger was relentless and the weight kept shedding.

Now on the other hand, hunger was just a dull ache. It was no longer something that hung in your mind and consumed your dreams. It had faded into the background of your existence, along with any naive dreams you had previously held so closely to your chest about finding and reconnecting with old friends and family and other relations. There was simply nothing left.

Kurloz was the one who had found your current living situation, an abandoned farm with a few wells scattered about the property. The fence had mostly been eaten and rusted away and Kurloz spent nearly every hour of every day patching it the best he could and patrolling the borders for Undead. And not once did you volunteer to help, to take a shift for him to sleep. You simply watched, sullen and pensive as he took his rounds and gathered what little food was left. 

The farm was out of the way, along a highway and two back roads. Kurloz was the one who had put a sign up along the highway to let people know where you two were. But that had been what felt like years ago and nobody ever showed up. Kurloz kept a record of the days on a calender almost religiously and you never spared it more than a cursory glance. Your days were spent either sleeping or sitting in the yard in front of the house, a bat on your lap and a gun at your side. Every so often your thoughts would return to Life Before and that's when the anger would flare up.

Kurloz was no good for arguments or physical altercations. You could berate and shove him for hours and he would only watch, passive and compliant to your volatile temper and demands. He never made a sound, never raised his hands to stop you. In some ways, that was worse than if he would fight back. The only time you had an outlet for your frustrations was when you would offer to check the highway cars for supplies mostly just to get away from the farm and from time to time would come across an Undead.

As you wailed your bat in an arc, up and down up and down, you put all of your strength into each swing. And even long after the thing had stopped moving, you would continue to bring the bat down over the concave skull. Then, almost begrudgingly, you would grab up your bookbag and gather whatever you decided was worth carrying back.

You raised your eyes to the plaintive look Kurloz was giving you now, which you turned your nose up to. Food was little concern now. He made a sort of croaking sound in his throat, an increasingly frequent and annoying habit, and held the pail out again. You abruptly smacked it away, the contents spilling over the grass. You were on your feet in a moment.

"I'm not fuckin' eating that slop!" You yelled in his face, shoving his chest. He stumbled from the force and you kept shoving. "What the motherFUCK is the point, Loz! We ain't got shit now! We ain't got no Gods, no faith, no nothin'! Just- Fuck off!"

There was the croaking sound again as he tried with shaking hands to pick up the pail. You kicked it aside and watched briefly as it rolled to the field. "You fuckin' insisted we stick together and here we is- starving to death on some motherfucking hickory farm that ain't got no better protection than if we was out in the damn road."

His hands were raising as he tried to sign something to you and you turned away before you even gave him the chance to try. You stormed onto the porch and through the front door, slamming it behind you. And never once did you see Kurloz kneeling down and fighting to speak- really speak- as he gathered up the berries from the dirt.


End file.
